EVANGELINE TANKFUL: A SPY IN RETIREMENT

Pom-Pom

I began my first story – ‘The Pom-Pom Letters: Memoirs from Alternative Accommodation’ – ten years ago and, several years ago, I began to type it in on Blogger. It is very true that, for some people, writing can be an act of insurrection, for it was so for me. Here is the postscript to the 105 posts that I penned overall and which I felt impelled to write. The URL is: http://thepompomletters.blogspot.com

10 Forsythia Grove
Outer Hamlet
CORSETTSHIRE ZY6 4GT

February 28 1997

My Dear Ralph

I’m sorry about the long hiatus pet. I think I may have been trying to concentrate the forces required to write this last epistle. Comedy is, after all, a well-known antidote to what is, often, the deadly arena of life. I am not going to go into detail here – as I have, indeed, barely mentioned my long career in the Service – but I seem to have spent most of this year with my foot on the neck of evil. And now, I may, I think, finally have broken the neck of it. This saddens me dear, for one does not ever wish to set out upon the path of Nemesis. I used to think, like Christ perhaps, that one should ‘turn the other cheek’ and react compassionately to manifestations of darkness. But, if there is one thing I have learned over the course of my life, it is that evil does not respond well to any demonstrations of goodness, kindness and love. Evil is playing by different rules and can, I believe, only be stopped by some expression of force. So I have gone beyond my own limits and opposed the dark force, driven it before me, and struck possibly a mortal blow. I cry dear, for the loss of goodness that never was. I place my full stops. I place them carefully. I am elliptical, doubtless, but aren’t we all occupying hidden worlds? Aren’t we all swept by currents whose meaning we can barely comprehend? Only follow the light pet, is all that I can say. Follow it as best you can . . .